Ryan's trouble-making
brother, Trey, gets out of prison, and calls Ryan to say he needs a lift.

Sandy goes with
Ryan to pick up Trey, and they try to drop him off at a friends house in
Chino. But the house turns out to be a dilapidated shack, and there's nobody
home.

Both Sandy and
Ryan feel guilty about stranding Trey there, so they reluctantly offer
to put him up in Newport for a while, and he accepts.

Q.
What is it actually in real life?

A. At the time
the episode was filmed, it was a small wooden house. It has now been leveled,
and there's just a dirt lot where it used to stand.

Q.
Where can I find it in real life?

A. Many scenes
in The O.C. were filmed at the Redondo
Beach Marina. Just across the street (east of) the Redondo Marina is
an electrical power plant (with smokestacks that are visible for miles
along the beach).

In this episode,
you can see that power plant in the background of Trey's house scene.

If you go just
one block east of that power plant, you would have found the little
house, tucked away between industrial buildings, on the north/NE side of
N. Gertruda Ave - just east of the northeast corner of Gertruda and
Catalina Ave., in Redondo Beach. (It seems to map out to approximately
590 N. Gertruda Ave, Redondo Beach.) Here
is a map
link.

Unfortunately,
although (as of August 2007) Live LocalBirds-Eyeaerial
photosand
Google's aerial
photos still show the house sitting there (see the photo below), more
recent aerial photos from Live Local show that the house
has been torn down, and there is just a dirt lot where the small house
used to stand. (So don't bother trying to visit.)

Q.
How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A. This one
was hard to find, because it no longer exists. Also, I initially mistook
the power plant for an oil refinery, and I spent my time looking for the
house around the local oil refineries. However, once I realized it was
actually the Edison power plant in the background, I was able to focus
my search there, and using Live Local maps, I found it with
minimal effort. It was later that I discovered that the house had been
torn down.